“Remoted” – Day 531 (Sunday)

It's been a while since visiting thrift stores was regular entertainment. It used to be a weekly or bi-weekly event, mostly for an excuse to leave the house, and sometimes to fulfill a need for specific wardrobe or household items. 

Today featured a trip to Salem, NH, a town which includes both Aldi and a Goodwill Store. These are both stores I shop at, but never before in Salem. Aldi was the primary reason for leaving the house, to restock items, especially after seeing the weekly flyer featuring some low prices on mums, mushrooms, blueberries, and cheese. It became a $50 adventure with two shopping bags and a box loaded with breakfast bars, corn chips, salsa, cookies, frozen pizza, ice cream, and more. I almost forgot the mums, but spotted the rack as I got into the checkout line and dashed over to grab a maroon one.

Thrift store score - $20.

I was like a kid at Disney marveling over the variety and prices. Some of the prices felt like flashbacks to when I first started shopping Aldi years ago – like the corn chips that are like Fritos, but cost 65 cents a bag instead of nearly $3.

Before Aldi, it was a visit to Goodwill in hopes of finding a very specific soup bowl shape and some curtains. Neither of these items was found, but there was a $20 score that included four frames still wrapped in the original plastic, a puzzle in the original plastic wrap, two mini muffin pans, and a magazine rack which will probably go on the front porch as a holder for the gardening tools currently strewn across a table. These made up for the absence of soup bowls and curtains. 

Skillet veggies and feta.

Back at home, the Sunday cooking involved a stir fry. It used the bounty of the gardens of friends and family including summer squash, zucchini, green beans, potatoes, and beets. This was supplemented by the mushrooms from Aldi and some riced cauliflower found in the freezer and finished with feta cheese. 

Yesterday, there was a visit to a new antiques store in Lowell. The place was packed with a ton of furniture including full sets of cabinetry in black lacquer like I saw in Korea, where armoires, chests, and dressers were used in lieu of closets. There were dining sets, and chairs labeled as being from hotels and many framed art pieces. It made me wish I had a place like my Victorian house in Fitchburg or my massive apartment in Worcester. There was nothing that looked like it would work in The BungaLowell. Maybe next time.

The day began and ended with shows on Hulu -- Nine Perfect Strangers, and finally, the fourth season of The Handmaid's Tale, which has been out for months but I just never bothered to watch it.